Vettel hits the front, Verstappen hits the wall

"It's wonderful to win in a Red Bull at the Red Bull Ring", said Verstappen, who was supported by an "Orange army" of more than 20,000 fans. Carlos said it was no problem and he completely understood, he was very chilled, and I still ended up with a penalty. "It was fantastic to win here with so many Dutch fans".

Ahead, Verstappen, who has received criticism aplenty for the errors that he's made over the course of the 2018 season, took his first win of the year.

The German driver, who leads by just one point going into the 10th of 21 F1 races this season, clocked the best lap time by 0.187 seconds faster than Hamilton and 0.357 quicker than Bottas.

The Haas cars of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen finished in fourth and fifth respectively, ahead of the Force India cars of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez.

Verstappen's absence allowed Fernando Alonso's McLaren to feature in the top six, just ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo, Verstappen's teammate who was celebrating his 29th birthday, was in a podium position but heavy rear tyre wear took its toll and he retired with a broken exhaust.

He leads fellow four times world champion Lewis Hamilton, victor for the past four years at Silverstone, by a point ahead of the 10th round of the season. "Very consistent. No mistakes".

Kimi Raikkonen was next to slide off going around a turn, though the Finn was fortunate to avoid major damage and was able to return with grass-covered tires.

Verstappen went on to control the race once Mercedes' failure to pit Lewis Hamilton under the early virtual safety vehicle, caused by Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas's retirement from second place, cost the Briton track position later on. For qualifying, we will try to do what we can but Ferrari and Mercedes are too fast over one lap. "My gearbox is gone", he told the team. The main reason was Mercedes' tactical blunder, which saw them staying out during the Virtual Safety Car while everyone else behind them dove in for a stop.

"Nobody is flawless. It would be boring if that was the case", added Hamilton, 33, whose new £120million contract with Mercedes will not be announced this weekend.

However, his team-mate boss Horner acknowledges that a few races ago that could have played out differently given Verstappen's run of incidents at the start of this season.